Refuse to be sidetracked.

So it’s kind of weird, but probably not that weird,  but I am a little addicted to Facebook. It is my biggest distraction in life. And I bet if you thought about it, you are too. I’m on there all the time! whether it's on the computer, on my phone, my Ipad. It’s getting a little out of hand. It is such a loathsome time suck. Or is it? I am able to keep in contact with and participate in the daily lives of people who I would never have kept in touch with otherwise. Not because I didn’t want to keep in touch, but rather I would not have the time. Could you imagine calling all of the people who show up on your daily news feed every day just to ask what’s going on? With Facebook you can do that and that’s a wonderful, community-building thing. But what are the down sides? A study done by Nucleus Research recently found that Facebook cuts worker productivity by 1.5%. A similar study conducted by Ohio State University that claims that students who regularly use Facebook have a GPA of between 3.0 and 3.5. While those who don’t use Facebook (and subsequently study more) have an average GPA of 3.5 to 4.0. So Facebook is making us less productive and more dumb. But is the “lasting friendship” trade off worth it? I aim to do a little life experiment to find out. I like the idea of life experiments. I first heard about the concept from Erik Kennedy’s guest post on “The Art of Manliness” blog. The basic premise is simple. If there is something that you think needs to be changed, change it! And then see what happens. Or in Mr. Kennedy's words;

1. Think of a way in which you might live a better, happier life
2. Do that thing — at least for a short time
3. Reflect on what you learned and change your behavior accordingly

You may find that you don’t like the change and that’s ok. But you may find that you have changed your life forever, and that is priceless. So here is my first experiment. No Facebook for a week. It’s as simple as that.

Pork Chop Night Part 3

At the top of the stairs there was a door that opened into a large living room with a baby grand off to the left and back a little. I hated it because it was black and I had to dust it nearly everyday to keep it nice. My mother always told me not to bother with it and that the maid will just get it in the morning. But she wouldn’t, not well enough at least. She always left dust in the cracks, every crack, and it drove me mad. I was always dusting it and it was always dusty. I made my way past the dusty piano, trying not to look at it, and into the formal dining room, which is where we always ate. The places were already set, one for me my mom and my dad. My dad’s plate and silverware were missing leaving just an empty tablecloth and an unused glass. My mother was sitting at the table waiting for me. “Hello Marcus!” she said in a voice a little to high and a little two loud. She was drinking a Highball, she loved Highballs, and from the tone of her voice I could tell it wasn’t her first. I hated it when she called me “Marcus” too. She always put the emphasis on the ‘ma’ and sort of forgot the rest like ‘MAHcus’. She only says it that way when she has had at least two Highballs. “You’re a little late for pork chop night.” She said. She hated it when I was late for pork chops. I’m not sure why, she didn’t even cook it. Tony the cook did.  “Your father is having his in his study.” She said as nicely as she could muster. “It’s just you and me tonight.” I said nothing. I didn’t say much to my parents ever. Not that they would really listen anyway. I mean, they did hear. They always heard what I said but the never really thought about what I was saying.

“I said, your father is eating in his study tonight. It’s just you and me. How does that make you feel?” They were always asking me this. “How doe’s that make you feel.” Or, “What were you thinking when you did that?” I go to this doctor who asks me questions like this all the time. My dad hates it. “He doesn’t need to go to no brain doctor, Maxine.” He said when my mother suggested it. “He’s just fine.”  Dr. Anderson is his name. He keeps talking about some Freud or something and asks me questions about just about everything. I don’t say much to him either.

I didn’t care much either way if my dad was eating in the study or in the damn foyer. He often took his meals in the study saying, “I’ve got work to do.” My father was the New York City Council Speaker. Pretty high up I guess. He’s always got some dinner or gala he’s got to go to.         

My mom and me ate in silence, not unusual. But it was a palpable silence. There was something very unusual about it. I finished the pork chops and most of the apples that were in the glaze. I left the lima beans. I hate lima beans. They are the vilest of all the beans in the bean world and they cannot be trusted. Tony brought another highball into the dinning room and set it right next to my mother who had her forehead resting on her cocked arm which was on the table, rumpling the table cloth into two small waves. She didn’t look up. I left the dining room and made my way down the long, wood lined hall to the study. I found the door slightly ajar. I go on my hands and knees and crept through the door on all fours. My dad’s chair was one of those big, green leather jobs with the big brass pins in the back and the scrolled wood arms. He was sitting in it as always and it was faced towards the window overlooking the park as usual. I crawled over to the large cherry wood desk and leaned against the back of it. I did this often. He didn’t know about it, but I liked the smell of his cigars.        

Happily In Pursuit.

Well, I broke my back. I was mountain biking, I leaned back a little too far, I reached the fulcrum point of my dirt jump bike, and I looped out and landed on my back. Luckily I only cracked one vertebra on the anterior surface. It’s OK and I will make a full recovery. I hate telling people I hurt myself because then they always say, “I’m so sorry, are you ok?” and the answer is yes, I’m fine. I hate it when people feel sorry for me, so I usually just say, “yes, I’m fine” even if I’m not. But I am fine aren’t I? Even if I don’t think I am. I am so blessed and privileged that for me to show even the slightest discontent would be grossly frivolous. My life is amazing, and so is yours. Yes, my back hurts, but my access to modern medicine is enviable around the world. Its all relative, and relatively speaking, we all have it pretty damn good.

I turn 27 years old this week. When I was 7, or even 17, I would have never guessed in a million years that I would be here with a broken back writing this right now. When I was 7 I wanted to either be a Vintner or a Garbage Man. This was back when the garbage man still rode on the back of the truck, I thought that looked like fun. As for being a vintner, I was a very strange child. When I was 17 I had no idea what I wanted to do, all I did know was that I wanted to be a millionaire and drive around Ferraris. I had no plan of action to obtain that goal, but that’s what I wanted. And here I am, 27, a part time graphic designer and a part time warehouse manager with a broken back and thinning hair. And you know what? It’s amazing. I didn’t plan any of this. My “wildest dreams” did not come true; I’m just a putz living in a suburb. But here is the thing about dreams. You’re always told that dreams are something to attain, like you can own them someday. Put them in a mason jar under the mattress and save them for a rainy day. This is not true. The pursuit of happiness? Bullshit, but only the pursuit part.

Happiness is not a destination, it is a realization.

I have a friend who writes a blog called Finding Freedom. Here is the thing though, freedom is already here, it’s not lost, you don’t have to find it; you already have it. You just have to see it. People think that “if I quit doing ‘x’ I will be happy” or if I start doing ‘y’ then I will be happy” or “if I have ‘z’ then I will be complacent”. Happiness is not just around the corner, its right in front of you. Its all around you, its in you right now. All you have to do is open your eyes. Nothing can make you unhappy, or angry or sad or anything else for that matter. You can only make yourself these things. Say a gust of wind comes and messes up your hair. Did the wind make you angry or did you choose to be?

I struggled with depression for years as a teenager and young adult. I took anti depressant pills and everything, the whole works. I know I know, If you are unhappy its always because “X” made you unhappy or because “Y” hurt your feelings, never because you chose to react that way to the situation right? Wrong, it’s a choice, it’s an awakening. This American dream that has been shoved down our throats, want this, want that, want more, want more. If you live in a $600,000 house you want a $1,000,000 one, that will make you happy. (Guess what happens when you get to that million dollar house?) You Drive a BMW? If you had a Land Rover you would be happy. You have a flat screen? A bigger one would make you happier. Overweight? If you loose 50 lbs you will be happy. And on it goes. Its not real, its BS. Sure there are moments of happiness sprinkled in here and there but when does it end? When do we realize that we are no happier in a 3 million dollar mansion than we are in a $20,000 trailer home? The answer is when we finally open our eyes and look around. When we finally realize that this peak that we all try to climb to, this Mt. Happiness, is all smoke and mirrors. Its like raking leaves in the wind. We have to stop relying on the things that don’t matter to make us happy, because eventually the ether will wear off and we will still want more. We need to stop relying on each other to make us happy because people will let us down, whether they mean to or not. And we have to start making that choice to open our eyes and look around and realize that happiness and freedom have been side by side with us the whole time.

All these things by the way, the Ferrari, the mansion, the yachts, loosing weight etc. these aren’t bad things. These are very good things. The problem arises when we put these things on a golden pedestal and say, “I can’t be happy until I attain them”. If these things are your goal, as they are mine, then go get them! But you must cut the tether that your goals have on your happiness. Because that’s not how that works. Why should you not be happy in your pursuit?                     

Pork chop Night. part 2

Thunderstorms are hint of the power that can be had when many small things work together, whether on purpose or otherwise. This power can be seen in many things; people, ants and water droplets. But is not limited to physical beings or tangible objects, it can be stored as small comments unforgotten and memories long un-thought. The madness of crowds and small multiples is nothing that can be planned, although it often happens on purpose and is sometimes overdue. Anger and dissention rise like a thunderstorm, with feeble beginnings and innocent grudges, and slowly but exponentially grows over time, sometimes unknown to its captive. One cannot hold forever this weighted state and will one day give deluge to it’s furry, even if unknown, hidden within.  

“I very much like dogs,” I say to myself as I pedal home. I don’t think I would like to own one, but I like the idea all the same.. There was something happening overhead. The clouds were giving up their independence and joining into something greater. Low rumbles of thunder were starting to make their way to my ears. I loved thunderstorms.

It was getting a little dark as I neared our building, and by the time I reached the front stoop it was raining slightly.  I pulled my hawthorn up the eight steps to our front door. I know it was exactly eight as I counted them ever time I went up or down. It made me happy that there were eight and not seven or nine. It was an even eight, a good sturdy number, plus I like the sound of the word eight. Its like ‘ate’ but slightly different. I like words that are close but not quite. The front door was open slightly, a weird open. Not all the way open as if to suggest purpose, and not just barely to suggest a carless closing, but sort of not quite half way open. Or maybe a little more than half closed. I pushed the door open all the way and pulled my shining and now water droplet stricken bike into the foyer and leaned it on the wall under the coat rack, pinching the sleeves of one of my dads camel hair coats between the handlebars and the wall. I pulled at an end of my scarf, which hung on the rack all year long, until it fell off the hook and over the top bar of my bike like lace. I took both ends and dried my bike with back and fourth polishing motion. My mom would be furious if she saw me do this, after all it was from Macy’s. I put the scarf back on the hook with a sort of lasso motion but not letting go of either end. It caught the wooden peg on the third try and as it did I noticed the tag. ‘Marc Wollard’. My mom had written my name on the tag with Sanford’s ink so as to identify it to me. For some reason all my scarves kept loosing me. I closed the door behind me, locked both the handle and the deadbolt, and made my way up the stairs and into the house proper. 

Pork Chop Night

“Hi.” I said as I approached. There was no answer. I slowed my bicycle to a stop two feet from the dog, still in the street, my front tire resting on the 6 inch curb. It was a Hawthorn Zep that my dad, of course with much persuasion from my mother, reluctantly bought me for my birthday last year, August 16th. “Ordered brand new from Montgomery Ward’s.” I would tell anyone who asked, and often those who didn’t. The bike was considerably to big for me but my mother kept saying “he’ll grow into it in no time”.

  

I set my bike on its side near the gutter but out of the street, careful not scratch the shining new paint. ( I had already polished it three times with the turtle wax I found in the garage)  The dog didn’t look up or even give an afterthought to my arrival. He just lay, lethargic in his summer boredom, on his side. He was a ridiculous looking dog. The kind with the skin two sizes too big. He looked as though he were melting into the sidewalk.

“Hi.” I said again, and was met with an abrupt “you can’t pet him.”

“Why not?” I said, looking over at her.

“He doesn’t like you.” She said. She was sitting on the second step, just above the dog.

“I never met him. How does he know he doesn’t like me?” I said nonplussed, proud of my on-the-spot logic.

“He just doesn’t, or wouldn’t. I know him pretty well. After all, he is my dog. Besides, he’s real vicious. He could bite your arm off an’ eat it if he wanted. I’ve seen him do it before”

I looked down at the dog. He gave a lazy sideways glance and went back to thawing into the concrete. “He doesn’t look mean.” I said, matter of factly. “He looks down right nice if you ask me.”

“Well he’s not.” She said. “Why do you think we hadda’ move here?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“He killed a man, our neighbor, where we used to live up north a little. We had to leave in the middle a’ the night to avoid the cops. It was really quite exciting.”

I looked at her, dumbfounded, and picked up my bike.

“Where did you get that bike anyway.” She said, in a tone no doubt gleaned from her mother and her friends. It was the kind of tone reserved for such quips women say in private company, like, “where on earth did she get that haircut?” or “did you see those shoes?!”

“Ordered brand new from Montgomery Ward’s.” I said with pride, bathing in the jealousy I knew was coming from her.

“Well, I don’t like it.” She said, “and neither does Charles.” She said positioning her nose ever so slightly but almost unnoticeably higher and to the right than it was before.

“Is Charles his name?” I asked. “After Charles Lindbergh?”

“Yes its Charles and no it’s not after Lindbergh.” She stated. “You really believe that guy flew al the way to Paris? Seems a little fishy to me.”

“They said he did at school.” I said, and, “can I call him Charlie?”

“No, his name is Charles, he’s dignified.” She said, followed by, ”You believe everything they tell you in school?”

With that I turned my new Hawthorn toward the street and started to walk away.

“Hey.” she said calling after me.

I stopped and turned my head slightly over my left shoulder. Enough to let her know I was listening but not enough to show her I cared. 

“He’s named after Charles Chaplin.”  

“Oh.” I say as I continue walking.

“I’ll talk to him tonight. Maybe I can convince him not to eat your arm.”

I kept walking.

When I got to the street corner I kicked the pedal of my bike backwards, taking advantage of the freewheel, to get it in just the right position, put my left foot on and stood on it, letting my weight propel the bike forward as I swung my right leg over the seat. I rode home, as it was getting late and my mom was making pork chops. She hated it when I was late on pork chop night. Any other night seemed to be ok but certainly not pork chop night.  

Lighten up and live a little

We are a generation defined by what we hate. Or should I say my generation, and the generation right before mine, and the one directly after. And I think this is killing us. It is so easy to give our opinions on a global scale and we are taking advantage of it by spreading such negativity and rage. Don’t believe me? I dare you to find a Youtube video where the comments section is nothing but stupid opinions and hateful replies. It could be a video of Kittens cuddling with a baby in front of a butterscotch waterfall with angels singing in the background and some jackass with the screen name “epickilla1997” will say “that’s not an accurate depiction of a butterscotch waterfall, they are much more yellow than that.” To which another ass hat will reply, “You’re such an idiot, have you ever even seen a butterscotch waterfall? I have one in my moms basement.”

Here is the problem. Everybody all of the sudden decided that their opinion really matters in the course of the world. I have news for you; you ready? Your not gonna’ like it. YOUR OPINION DOESENT MEAN SHIT. It used to be that people who actually did something with their lives got the privilege of having their opinions heard. If you were a plumber you were a plumber. That’s it. You plumbed, you went home, you ate dinner, you kissed your kids goodnight and you got up the next day and did it all over again. But now, any turd burgle with a computer and wireless internet stolen from their neighbors can have their stupid asinine opinions projected to the whole world, regardless if their thumbs don’t oppose and they are still living in their parents basement. I think this has gone to our heads a little bit. We are like the police, we have this ultimate power and we maybe flex our muscles a little to much. We have the power to take down a local business with a few stupid comments on Google and to ruin some ones self-esteem for life with even stupider comments on Facebook.

I think people have forgotten how good we have it so they are trying to find something, anything, to complain about. We are so comfortable that we let butterscotch baby fountains just piss us off.  We can send messages around the world instantaneously. We have the collective knowledge of the world at our fingertips through websites like Wikipedia and Wolfram alfa. The world we live in is spectacular! In the words of one of my favorite comedians, everything is amazing and nobody’s happy, and it’s true. Think about that the next time you send someone across the country a text message. That shit is going up to a satellite IN SPACE and being delivered to the person of your choice instantly. THAT’S AMAZING!   

I think maybe we need like 2 years where we have donkeys and horses and shit and we have to grow and hunt our own food to survive like it has been for, oh I don’t know, 99% OF MANKIND’S EXISTANCE. I tell you what, after one day of that we would be a hell of a lot more grateful for the world we live in know. All I’m saying is that we all need to take a step back and realize how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things and how really good we have it. We need to just lighten up and live a little.